Sacred Practice

SACRED PRACTICE

Lynn Parks After Rumi

Take the time to pray-

it is the sweet oil that eases the hinge in the garden So the doorway can swing open easily,

You can always go there.

Consider yourself blessed.

These stones that break your bones will build the altar of your love.

Your home is the garden,

Carry its odor, hidden in you, into the city.

Suddenly your enemies will buy seed packets and fall to their knees to plant flowers

in the dirt by the road.

They’ll call you Friend.

And honour your passing among them

The imagery of a garden is often used to describe the relationship to practice.

pranayama, chanting..... whatever practice is to you. There is something about the daily ritual of showing up on the mat or zafu that needs to be cultivated like a garden if you want to truly have a transformative practice and one which informs and supports you throughout your life. You go there every day, it is your very sacred garden and what you do there is entirely upto you. It is a place where the rules fall away and the possibility of listening to a deeper rhythm of being arises. Sometimes, you enter through the gate of time and location well chosen, only to find a morass of weeds and stinky compost; you know you need to get to work and shift and stir and move. At other times, you slide into this special time and all you want and need to do is lie down on a grassy bank and smell the roses. The garden speaks to you and you respond. You love each other with the turning of the seasons and days, evolving in unison. Days when you don’t go there are days that lack lustre and you return as soon as you possibly can to this well of infinite life.

Pablo Neruda

If each day falls

inside each night,

there exists a well

where clarity is imprisoned

We need to sit on the rim of the well of darkness and fish for fallen light with patience.

Si cada dia cae

dentro de cada noche,

hay un pozo

donde la claridad esta encerrada.

Hay que sentarse a la orilla del pozo de la sombra

y pescar luz caida

con paciencia.

Interestingly enough, there are many modern practitioners who do not cultivate this marvelous well or do not know that it exists. Time and again I meet students of many years, teachers, trainees who have to beat themselves up to get to the mat. Or they feel that going to other

Yoga, meditation,

people’s classes and workshops is enough. Well, it depends how you answer the question “Enough for what?” You can certainly derive benefit from attending classes – in fact this can feed the garden of your own yoga; it is often rich compost, it’s where many of us begin this love affair. However, if all you are doing is following someone else’s font of knowledge and inspiration, you will never dive deep enough into truly transformative practice....that sense of knowing, which -on a very pragmatic level- keeps injury at bay and eventually allows you to open to the more hidden and mysterious parts of yourself. Yoga without a home practice definitely helps most mortals, but for those who chose to truly be a “yoga practitioner”, the rewards are immeasurable.

And it isn’t easy. If it were, most folks would do it, pas de probleme! It is, as the Buddha intimated, “like flowing upstream” at times. Initially, there can be the simple question of finding some space in an already over-extended schedule. What are you going to give up to cultivate this garden? Sleep? Work projects, family time? Something has to go as there are only 24 hours in the day. This is the first and major step. The intention needs to be strong enough to thwart the whispers that would tell you that everything else has priority except this. If this desire is weak or wobbly, you will spend your entire life walking on the perimeter of the garden, getting glimpses over the hedgerows, but not being able to find a way in.

So first of all, find a time, preferably the same time everyday – a minimum of 45 minutes if you are serious (if you are a committed teacher and true yoga adventurer probably much much more!) and whatever you can manage if you want simply health maintenance and wellbeing. Early in the am or at dusk are the times the ancient yogis favored. There is something special about these times of day that naturally are on the cusp of doing into being-ness. Your constitution may favor a certain time of day; your schedule and your commitments may mean that there is only one slot in the timetable. But if you really can’t find a regular time to practice, ask yourself if you are sufficiently serious about yoga to invest this time, or you just want to enjoy others gardens or possibly not even garden at all! Ram Dass wisely advises that if you keep coming up with resistance and problems, don’t waste so much time. Go out and have a picnic instead, have fun let go of pursuing something that is beyond your range this lifetime. Perhaps there is some other vehicle for living fully that may be a more natural dive in....Maybe yoga next life-time! Don’t let it become a drudge whatever you do. Whoever heard of a gardener who cursed the needs of their plants. Yes, there are challenges, times when it is not convenient or pleasant to show up, but show up you do and willingly work with what’s there for the time you have, whatever the weather, whatever the incessant pulls of life are screaming at you.

NOT JUST ME HERE?! OH NO!

Assuming that you can find the time, and you do have the commitment, then we face the inevitable humbling meeting of self. We step into the garden and we are alone. In this culture, this is quite revolutionary – Our modern technology and cityscapes can leave us both the sense that we are never apart but we are never truly alone. Muzak runs through the dentist office and the mall, and often many yoga classes. So solitude and silence is not something that is necessarily so supported in this western culture, or even approved of. Often the fear of silence and facing the humbling questions that arise when you step away from the more regular activities and distractions of work and home life, and hone your attention to this body-mind, become warped by a sense that one’s practice is “selfish” No, it’s not selfish if it is reasonably tuned into the needs and wants of you and your community life. It can sometimes be a retreat, an escape from the relative insanity that many of us live by and if that is all it is then, maybe the bigger question is how can my whole life reflect a more yogic way of being? Taking on a practice

will bring the deeper issues of ones life to the forefront – it is a path of purification and simplicity and anything that gets in the way of that will – hopefully in a helpful way – present itself as you sit, move, breath in a quiet place. In the days of Patanjali, the only concrete obstruction to practice, noted in his sutras was noise and mosquitoes. However those that even considered practicing yoga were a small elite in the whole population. We are trying to be engaged mystics in a 21st century reality – a relatively new and evolving form of life path. At the same time, the basic issue of walking away from societal norms, stepping out into a voyage of discovery, is the same for all of us whatever century, whatever culture. Each day we step into our yoga, opening to this bigger sense of self, we are going against the cultural grain and there will be inner and outer resistance to this.

SLAYING THE DRAGONS Once you have settled some of the outer forces that pull you away from your path, - figured out the schedule so it’s the least invasive on others and the kindest to your own and planetary selfcare, then one has to face the demons of distraction and delusion that can – particularly at the beginning, overwhelm the tender shoots of our practice intention. We may be able to blame culture, worklife, our partner, our kids, our parents, our pets for many of the reasons that coming to the mat is challenging. But once we have arrived there, sometimes there is either a weariness or an over zealousness that precludes the essential listening that we have to do to open to the divine/spirit/intuition or whatever you call it, that will guide you through your practice. We have to slay the dragons first of that cup of coffee, that unwritten email, that achy back and just arrive and then, we meet what’s here. This is where the meditation practice even if it’s only for a few minutes, allows the possibility to be with what is, with generosity and curiosity. Avoid the rush to get started, to get on the program at the beginning of practice and evolve some time, awake-time not dream-time, to sense where you are at, what you need, where you are going. Befriending the essential loneliness of practice, is the only way through the garden gate and one that you come to relish but at times you fear and avoid.

At the same time, it is helpful in those first few minutes to also acknowledge the impact of practice on others, the fact that we practice for the benefit of all beings. Many practitioners salute, bow or chant to their teachers or ancestors, or recite a simple prayer of gratitude, inviting this sense of being part of a bigger whole in and offering this time to others. One teacher I know asks her trainees to practice for themselves and teach for their students and not mix things up. I would suggest that this logic misses the bigger issue and I invite serious students/teachers to practice for the universe and teach for themselves, gradually dissolving that sense of little self in the process. If you practice deeply then your well evolves to encompass the needs of your students and those around you. Service becomes simply being alive.

DODGY BEGINNINGS Richard Freeman, an inspiration to many with his work, humbly concedes that there are days when he too would rather avoid this reckoning, this meeting with our little self and the quirks or stories of our body-minds. On these days, he coaxes himself in with the self-suggestion “I’ll just do tadasana and then see..” Inevitably after tadasana, a thought will arise “Maybe an uttanasana and then I will give up....” And the uttanasana leads to a half sun salute and then, he’s off. Or if there are days, when there is insistent resistance, he takes himself off for a walk. This is someone who has a rich and devoted practice to yoga and this is a mature response. Why pollute the sacred space of mat practice? Instead a walk, a bath, a simple quiet activity that honors that 45minutes/2 hours – it is still YOUR time, your retreat from the hustle and bustle of human beingdom.

Sometimes the usual avoidance mantras seem indestructible! If its just a niggly feeling “I don’t feel like it”, a kind of rebellion to the self-imposed authority of the hour, then remember that this is often one of the juiciest ways to enter in if you can stay with “I don’t want to....” A regular practice becomes like brushing teeth, you just show up and let negotiation fall away whether you

feel like it or not. If you constantly bow to the “don’t want to”, “do it later”, then you will inevitably never ever have a regular practice that will become a journey, an absorbing adventure. In this society we are educated to believe that we can do exactly what we want to all the time – if we have a pain, we take a pill, if we don’t like a program we switch the channel. We have lost the art of craft, of discipline and the treasures inherent in staying the course even if part of you would prefer to be somewhere else. The muse doesn’t show up unless you meet her in all weathers willingly. If you are a teacher you will burn out as the well becomes dry with out a regular trickle feeding it from the underwater creek of surrender to whatevers happening and stay the course!

CREATIVITY So, sometimes the resistance to practice is because your expectation of yourself doesn’t meet what is calling for attention. You may have a deluded sense that a practice is not a practice unless it includes 10 sun salutes and yet, your body doesn’t want to do sun salutes, it needs a long slow restorative practice. This is why that first few minutes of meditation, or quiet is so important, to just let the body speak, talk to you and you get to understand little by little the language of its rhythms. You decipher what is sluggishness and avoidance, and what is genuine physical weariness, you note when the nervous system is a little jumpy and that initial leap into massive backbends is just promoting an adrenalin run day. But this takes time and persistence AND experimentation. Being willing to be in “not knowing” , and crafting your practice as best you can, observing the results of that practice and the decisions made is the way we bring creativity into our asana.

CONTAINERS If the muse is hard to find, use a container of some sort. Once the framework of time and space are sorted, you may need a basic structure of practice to get you going and moving. Most students resort to a similar practice framework as it means less decisions and less “I”. This can be very helpful but with some caveats if this is all you do. Repetitive movement that becomes unconscious and automatic is the prime reason many longer term practitioners have created problems for themselves in asana practice, actually hurting themselves by continually doing the same things over and over again without sensing that this is not necessarily what the body at this time, this age, this season needs.

Sometimes when the muse is hard to hear, use a practice from a previous class, yoga asana cards, begin with a DVD or audio, take a format off the internet. Again, this is all potentially of use and can get you going on those days when distraction or confusion or lethargy rules. There needs to be time at some point, on some days where you let the inner muse guide you. Poses themselves –both the ancient and the more accessible modern asanas - are containers, forms in which to explore, breathe, unravel. Once you are beyond the basic beginning stage, you usually have enough simple poses to play with without needing to worry about safety issues. Where there is a safety confusion around a pose, best to consult with a teacher in person – this is where classes can be fabulously supportive of, even essential for, home practice. There are ways to practice poses and movements that enhance the natural flow of breath, posture and rhythm but most of the instructions that we have in standard studio yoga these days don’t necessarily leave space to discover that for ourselves. We end up using the same drill sergeant routine or instructions to get ourselves into poses and forget to leave time to develop trust in the wisdom of the body. Remember that this is a conversation. It’s not a monologue! Modern yoga favors left brain emphasis, with little emphasis on the listening, feeling, receiving bias of right hemisphere existence. Left brain slant– which we see in our more rigid systems and teachers of yoga - can be about dominating the body, controlling, one-pointedness favored over ambivalence, not knowing, softening, sensing the bigger context. Ideally it is a dance between the hemispheres and recalibrating of a more harmonious heart-brain-belly communication, inner body speaking to outer body – back and forth.

PAIN One container we all have to face at various times and possibly brought us to the mat in the first place, is all the parts of our being that are not as we would like them to be. Often people use the excuse of an injury or illness to avoid practice. Even if you were paralysed in a hospital bed, just able to breathe there would be some kind of practice of some sort that would soothe and help you at that time to be present, to be kind. Yoga is infinitely versatile with the multiple varieties of suffering inherent in the human being. Often these places of hurt or seeming limitation are the most powerful windows into the infinite. Sometimes, people tell me – usually on an airplane or at an event when a stranger pries my occupation out of me- “I cant do yoga because I am too inflexible’ As if the modern paradigm of noodly ladies in spandex doing acrobatics actually precludes them from yoga. If this were the case, then most yoga teachers would be out of work. It is our pain, our rigidity, our weakness that usually brings us to the yoga room not our gymnastic prowess. In a typical yoga class every single person in that room, if you asked them, would own to some condition, injury, hurt that was part of their current existence and practice.

Having said this, there is a tendency to avoid the painful in the typical projections laid at yoga teachers doors. There is an assumption that yoga teachers don’t actually need to deal with pain either their own or others. How did this come to be? A long time meditation teacher of mine told a group recently that she was grateful not to be a yoga teacher in her early years as it appeared that her friends who were, weren’t permitted to even have a cold if they were yoga teachers! In our area, a young teacher committed suicide a few months ago and it appears those that knew her suspected that this tragedy occurred because the image that this beautiful talented young woman felt she had to upheld in her yoga world didn’t have space for or include her own inner pain or seeming shortcomings. This is so incredibly sad. Pain is our friend if one doesn’t have a dominating distorted view of the bodymind. It guides us into where we need to listen, it opens the crack into the soft spot of the heart. Let’s hope we all, in our practice and teaching, can open to our own pain and to the pain of others, hold each other with our simple kindly words and movements. And when we are able, dive in to the places that hurt, that let the light in.

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.” - - - Leonard Cohen (Anthem)

SUGGESTIONS for allowing the inner voice to emerge:

- Design a core practice that meets your current basic needs and time limitations – see

Menu for ideas and a simple structure to hang them on.

- With each class you attend, or inspiration from book/dvd/web info, note any particular

theme, image, pose or sequence that touched you or sparked a curiosity for you in a

journal – Jot it down, pin figures/words, and feed it into your daily core practice

- As you become more aware of your tighter/weaker areas, see if you can include a

pose/movement/focus that addresses that area or at least opens a dialogue, an inquiry.

- Include a pose you love and a pose you loathe - notice how over time, this shifts and you forget which was what! Teachers often find the poses that they have found challenging

are the ones that they actually teach with more inspiration, wisdom and compassion and

poses that were easier for them, are more challenging -especially structurally- to convey.

- Begin with the breath, using a breath focus e.g. the exhale, throughout the practice.

- Select 1 pose - tree, dog, virasana & keep returning to it after 2 or 3 others – many classes

are designed to create a Peak pose – personally I feel this is a little overdone, there are many many other creative ways to look at practice but, sometimes working towards one

challenging pose can also be a helpful way to explore. Don’t lose the “little flowers on the roadside” as you move along the roadway you create to the pose. We can become so A to B focused and miss life bubbling over everywhere else! Going back again and again to the same pose in between others has more of a reflective tone and lets the one pointed focus rest awhile.

- Play with a group of poses – e.g. balancing poses, abdominal poses

- Explore a pose in different relations to gravity eg ardha chandrasana, as supta

padangustasana 2(leg to side), anantasana, vasisthasana with leg up etc etc....

- Focus on one area in your body in all the poses & the spaces in between

- Give yourself a simple instruction or thought like “relax the jaw”, “soften the eyes”

throughout

- Seek images from nature, watch the movement of fellow creatures, use music

occasionally, read a poem before you start, use sound or chanting

- Call a yoga friend, ask them what they are up to – where possible, go join them & practice

together

- Keep in touch with breath, belly & core - there’s always something happening there!

- Use a chakra or chakras as a focus; use an organ as a focus, use just one word like “peace”

or “stillness” or “joy” and thread it into your sun salutes or individual poses like sounding a bell, a reminder to come back to that place or word and listen to the reverberations.

- Ask your self “What is the kindest thing I can do right now?” in the middle of a pose, in the middle of a practice....continuously until it seeps into your cells

- If all else fails, contemplate ‘Resistance!’ & start again with the original core practice.

In our teacher trainings, we ask participants to sign an agreement to practice. Many – years later sometimes! – appreciate that signature as their gateway to a more committed practice. This is an initial container for our meandering, many optioned minds. We define the minimum amount of time depending on the level of the course but we do not say what a student should practice. Within the course there are suggestions, focuses that would be helpful to explore but how the practice is divided into active/passive asana, meditation, pranayama, chanting, contemplation is a very individual and day- to-day decision.

One of the problems that occurs over time with students who do have a regular practice is that they don’t let the practice evolve with their lives and both the outer and inner conditions of change. Sometimes, we can become very addicted to a practice that was more suitable to another era in our lives. Teachers who evolve with their practice over time and grow to love, truly love that time on the mat/zafu, no matter how challenging it can sometimes be, are always the teachers and practitioners that have something powerful and meaningful to share with others whether it is through asana teaching or through the way they lead their lives and the decisions they make, the people they support and care for and are supported and cared for in return, their attitude to the big and little questions in the universe. You can tell just by being around them, their well is dug deep and it flows.

When the practice is seen as a garden, it brings refreshment to every part of our being, wherever you are at! at whatever age, in whatever culture. It is a process of listening to the elements of our inner and outer landscape and compassionately raking the leaves, resting under the shade of the old walnut tree, rotatilling the potato patch, smelling the roses.....and letting this glorious evolving geography connect us with all beings, all gardens everywhere.

So now, today, let’s start, let’s practice for the benefit of all beings – including you!

TODAY

Today I'll sit still.

When my dog shuffles over and offers me

his fleas and his soul. I'll turn away.

To everything I'll close my eyes,

slice the darkness and eat it.

I'll refuse to give money on a platter

or a wet kiss under the moon.

Today I'll just sit

and say No to everyone and everything.

To the book on my desk, its sad tale

of abandonment, remorse and death;

I'll keep it on the tip of my tongue

like a lukewarm dime.

No to the daily mail with its greasy fingers,

no to the telephone and its humming

through the carcass of a sparrow,

no to every protection of the self.

No to me this preposterous accident

who speaks of the "self"

Today I'll be anti-social.

Today I'll grow into myself, be the river

of my blood, the sky inside my eyes,

the maze of my ribs, the dust that settles

on my heart. I'll let my bones sink

like pebbles in a pond.

I'll let my feet grow roots and be an extra zero on the checks that I'll refuse to write.

Ernesto Trejo